


Selfless Stunt

by Michinokao



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chuunin Exams, Gen, Naruto is Just Naruto, Sakura is considerate, Sasuke is not an asshole, he's just a kid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 07:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17382476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michinokao/pseuds/Michinokao
Summary: Sakura wants to become chunin. She really does. However, after seeing Naruto’s nervousness, she decides to raise her hand to drop out with her team.





	Selfless Stunt

“Sa-Sakura-chan?!” Naruto looks at her in shock. She just grins back crookedly. Morino Ibiki calls out their numbers and then Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto are hushed out of the exam room. She doesn’t dare to steer her eyes towards her crush... he’s probably pretty pissed right now. Sasuke had wanted to fight Lee and Gaara and she has just robbed him of the opportunity to do so.

Sakura swallows and stares at the tiled floor under her feet. They walk out in silence, passing two or three genin teams that are arguing heatedly with each other. She feels Naruto’s questioning gaze on her.

Sasuke nearly died for Naruto.

Sakura dropped out of the chunin exams for Naruto.

And she doesn’t even truly know why she raised her hand. She saw her team mate’s orange clad back shaking forty-five minutes straight and then... well... then there had been Morino’s stupid tenth question. Sakura had suddenly thought about all the times Naruto has declared he’ll be Hokage someday.

She doesn’t know what to think of herself.

When they unanimously come to a halt barely outside of the Academy, Naruto finally explodes: “Why, Sakura-chan?! I mean, yeah, it’s alright ‘cause we can try better next time but why did you drop out?”

“Yes... why?” Sasuke asks and his voice is nearly as cold as when he’d announced his goal. Sakura snaps up her eyes and comes face to face with Sasuke’s blood red Sharingan. He’s not pissed. He’s absolutely furious.

“I” she begins meekly, “I didn’t want to risk it. I didn’t want to risk Naruto’s dream or your promotion, Sasuke-kun. Look, we became genin like not even three months ago. Did you hear that Kabuto guy? Lee’s team waited a whole _year_ before they decided to enter! And I...” she stops in her tracks and sighs heavily, “I’m weak, okay? I’m _weak_ and everybody else was so much better than us and had more experience. We fought against missing-nin and they were _still_ better than us!”

“But we’d have totally killed it, believe it!” Naruto pouts but his protest is rather subdued.

Sasuke doesn’t say anything for a long time. His eyes are back to black again, though, so Sakura’s inclined to believe he doesn’t want to murder her anymore. The expression on his face is painfully blank until his eyelids flutter shut and he inhales a deep breath.

“Okay.” he states. Sakura makes a questioning noise.

He opens his eyes and looks at her in determination. “Okay.” he says again, “We’re a team, right? If you think yourself as weak, in turn, we all are. We’re going to do better, train harder than even Rock Lee and we’ll beat _everyone_ next time.”

Naruto and Sakura are both stunned. After the incident in Wave, the Uchiha had become distant and whatever little bit of upcoming friendship evolved between them had crumbled to dust when they arrived at Konoha’s gates in an eerie silence.

To see that Sasuke does indeed still believe in Kakashi’s words after all makes Sakura’s heart swell. Naruto cries: “Believe it! We’re gonna be so badass that we can even beat up Kakashi-sensei! Don’t worry, Sakura-chan – we’re gonna train with you and then we’re all chunin together and then jonin and then I’ll be Hokage and teme and you are gonna be my right and left hand!”

“Hn” Sasuke lets out, a playful smirk on his lips, “I think I’ll move to Kiri if I’m going to be your inferior, dobe.”

“Tche! Then I just gotta hunt you down and drag your sorry ass back to Konoha.”

“Dream on” the black haired boy drawls in amusement.

Sakura clears her throat, suddenly shy. She’s asked Sasuke countless times for a date but now that they have declared they will be great _as a team_ , she wants to extend the invitation to Naruto (platonically, of course). “Do you want to eat dinner together?” Sasuke is about to turn her down but she hastily adds: “Both of you, I mean.”

“Yeah, how about ramen?” Naruto demands enthusiastically after processing the fact that there’s no need for any rivalry between Sasuke and him any longer.

She shrugs, honestly not caring. Ichiraku is fine although it slightly hinders her diet.

“...hn.” the Uchiha slowly agrees, sending Naruto into a cheerful bouncy step.

They walk side by side (as _equals_ , the pink haired girl thinks with a small smile on her lips) to Ichiraku’s ramen stand where they begin planning for the future.   
Sasuke reveals he wants to become a swordsman, Sakura has been really impressed with Rock Lee’s taijutsu and thinks about drifting into the field herself and Naruto, after realizing due to a stray comment curtesy of Sasuke that his pranks could be used as a base for more complicated traps, swears on the god of all that’s holy (aka ramen in this case) that he’ll become the best trap specialist of Konoha.

A month later, when shit hits the fan and Jiraiya of the Sannin has to battle the Ichibi and the Third Hokage dies, Team 7 finishes their second C-rank turned halfway B-rank (that’s apparently just their luck) mission successfully.


End file.
